Calipari

The University of Kentucky’s gamble with basketball coach Calipari is like an all-star poker play going all in with only an ace high card in Texas Hold ’em: A move that can put you on top or make you look like a complete idiot. UK’s $31.4 million payoff to the coach has made Kentucky look like basketball is more important than an education. UK is struggling to keep its faculty and staff intact, tuition continues to rise for its students and the state legislature has continued to cut into UK’s budget.

He’s gone back on his original commitment to Florida, but point guard Austin Rivers says he’s not sure where he’ll play his college basketball. “I am really open to everybody at this point,” said Rivers. “I have talked to some coaches and have specific interest in a couple of schools.” Rivers is at Texas-San Antonio trying out for a spot on the 12-member team that will represent the United States at the eight-team FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship in San Antonio June 26-30.

My grandson, Tyler, went to Calipari's basketball camp in early August at Memorial Coliseum. What a great opportunity. I have never seen anything better run, and the kids had a great time.  It was programmed for the use of all time. They were taught discipline and sportsmanship. Not every child is an athlete but they all learned something and got the same instructions. They were grouped by age, and each group had a former UK player with them.  The young men who gave of their time and talents are to be commended.

Talk to 15 national media members or college coaches and you’ll get 15 different opinions on Enes Kanter’s situation. However, possibly the best analysis I read this week came from CBSSports.com senior writer Gary Parrish. Here is part of his online column that I particularly thought was insightful: “Remember, any questions about Kanter's amateur status aren’t questions that have anything to do with Kentucky. It all centers on what happened before Kentucky was involved with Kanter, as everything that affected Renardo Sidney's status at Mississippi State last year centered on what happened before Mississippi State was involved with Sidney.

It's a new beginning for John¿Calipari. That's become standard procedure under his watch as coach of the Wildcats. The Kentucky coach simply reloads with another crop of recruits similar, if not better, than the previous season. The remarkable thing is the fact that each of Calipari's first three freshmen classes climbed the ladder of success before last year's team reached the peak and captured the school's first national title since 1998. Calipari's first team lost in the regional finals, while the next one reached the Final Four and lost in the national semifinals.

When Indianapolis point guard Marquis Teague verbally committed to Kentucky in the spring, he did so in hopes other talented players would join him and Philadelphia small forward Michael Gilchrist in Kentucky’s 2011 recruiting class. So far, so good. Kentucky recently got a verbal commitment from Chicago power forward Anthony Davis, the top-ranked player overall in the 2011 recruiting class by http://www.scout.com , and Saturday night picked up another verbal from Oregon power forward Kyle Wiltjer, the country’s fifth-ranked power forward.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — It’s not hard for Alabama shooting guard Trevor Lacey to explain why Kentucky is one of the five schools he wants to visit before making a spring decision about where he’ll play his college basketball. “Coach (John) Calipari mostly, the style of play and I know I will have a great supporting cast of teammates and I will not be the only player there,” Lacey said as he explained why he has UK on his list along with Kansas, Connecticut, Auburn and Alabama.

LEXINGTON - For a first showing, it was all scoring and little defense for Kentucky during its annual Blue-White scrimmage Wednesday night at Rupp Arena. Both teams eclipsed the century-mark, with the blue team posting a 126-104 victory, while the Kentucky's best player - Terrence Jones - scored 52 points. Seven others, including Doron Lamb with 31, tallied double digits. Kentucky indeed produced the fireworks on offense, but lacked the defensive intensity Calipari was looking for in his team's first unofficial outing of the season.

ATLANTA - If John Calipari has his way, all the “drama” about Saturday's Kentucky-Louisville Final Four matchup will be focused on him and his staff, not Kentucky's players. “We're playing a basketball game. Believe me, we will not change,” Calipari said Sunday after Kentucky defeated Baylor 82-70 to advance to its second straight Final Four and a matchup against Louisville on Saturday in New Orleans. “The drama of the game will be on the staff, but I don't have many Kentucky players on my team.

If John Calipari's memory is correct,  players should learn in the sixth or seventh grade to follow the flight of the ball on shot attempts and then find someone to block out to gain proper rebounding position. That's something UK didn't do Friday in its win over Maryland when the Cats were outrebounded 54-38. “If we haven't worked on it, I can't be upset and we hadn't. I just thought we're 7 foot, 6-11, 6-10, 6-9, we'll rebound. No. When your guards are taking off and they're wedging you under and you're looking at the ball and you're next to the cheerleaders, you're probably not going to get the ball,” the Kentucky coach said Monday.

Kentucky coach John Calipari took time Monday during his satellite camp at Boyle County High School to talk to the parents and other adults in the audience about body language and what it can say about young players, using his son, Brad, as an example. “My son's 16 years old, he's a good kid, a good student. But we all think they know, and they really don't until they get in situations,” he said. “With my son, I watch him one day, this is about three weeks ago. He sleeps over with a friend, it's a 9 o'clock in the morning game, he didn't sleep, and he's got, like, an attitude and a body language on the court.

Jackson Ives got just what he wanted at John Calipari's camp - and not what he feared. The Stanford boy was looking forward to his chance to meet Calipari during the Kentucky coach's satellite camp Monday at Boyle County High School. He was a little apprehensive, however, about the idea that Calipari might coach the kids at the camp like he coaches the players on his team. “I figured that coach Cal was going to be yelling at us,” Ives said. Ives was also worried that he might have to do some running, which was what he liked least when he started practice last year for his first season of organized basketball.

She was holding two basketballs, two camp T-shirts and two backpacks, but Harrodsburg's Christie McGlone wasn't going to miss a chance to take a picture of her two sons with Kentucky basketball senior Jarrod Polson - or any UK coach or player at Monday's John Calipari Satellite Camp at Boyle County High School. McGlone managed to balance everything and still take pictures on her cell phone before the start of the three-hour camp. “I have three boys and two of them (Collin, 12, and Christian, 8)

On Monday, parents gathered their children together in the Boyle County High School gymnasium for one of the 2013 John Calipari basketball camps. As a part of the satellite tour this summer, the camp seeks to teach young, aspiring basketball players the essential tools of the game. The main activities of the day are taught by the University of Kentucky assistant coaches and a few returning players of the team. At the start of the camp, the parents, children and others circled around the gymnasium for a chance to have coach Calipari autograph their basketballs, photographs and other memorabilia.

Perhaps the 80 youngsters expected to be entertained with inside stories about Kentucky's upcoming basketball season or learn about John Calipari's recruiting secrets. Instead, the Calipari Satellite Camp at Boyle County High School on Monday was more of a chance for Calipari's staff and some players to show youngsters basic fundamentals. Calipari, as usual, was off limits to local media other than being able to listen to what he said to camp participants, but there were still several interesting tidbits to glean from the three-hour camp.

By just about any Kentucky fan's standard, last season was a failure. By John Calipari's standard, not so much. The Kentucky coach said he was disappointed that the Wildcats didn't have a better year - they finished 21-12 and lost in the first round of the NIT one year after winning a national championship - but he said that wasn't the only measure of success for him or the players. Calipari said all of Kentucky's players got something out of last season - even those who didn't play as well as expected.

Kentucky coach John Calipari will be the keynote speaker at the Henry Iba Citizen Athlete Awards on June 3 in Tulsa. “We have had the big names of college basketball as well as baseball and football here,” said Greg Kach, chairman of the Iba Athlete Awards for the Rotary Club of Tulsa. “I don't know John personally, but I know his reputation as a giver and someone that likes to be involved in the community.” Calipari's foundation has raised millions of dollars to help people in need.

Kentucky coach John Calipari said he gave freshman Archie Goodwin  "the information, what was out there, what we were told" before Goodwin put his name into the NBA draft. "We sat down and talked to him and he came back and said he wanted to put his name in the draft and we said, 'Great, let's go for it,'" Calipari said Wednesday. "I'm not going to sit here and give you everything I said or my opinion because I don't think, it's fair but they get everything they need and whatever decision they make - I've been on the phone right now with probably five or six NBA teams about Archie.

LEXINGTON - Even though Kentucky coach John Calipari insisted Wednesday that he was “not hearing” the talk about his team being a lock to win next year's national championship, he said he could “imagine” the talk is out there. Apparently he's the only one that doesn't know for sure the talk is out there even if the Wildcats didn't get Andrew Wiggins on Tuesday. “It's probably because people are really rooting for us to do well. So that's probably part of the reason. They want us to do so well, they're putting that out there to help us build this team right,” joker Calipari.

LEXINGTON - If Kentucky coach John Calipari is right, last year's NIT season was “the beginnings of success” for the upcoming season for the Wildcats. “What we're about to undertake has never been done before. Trying to put teams together like this, where you're talking a big number of players, whether it be the Lakers, the Miami Heat, it takes time,” said Calipari during his summer press conference Wednesday. “There's a learning curve. There's a galvanizing process that we have to go through.